


Places to Be

by Lobelia321



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-02
Updated: 2011-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:23:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobelia321/pseuds/Lobelia321
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dreaming occurs. Arthur sweats.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Places to Be

**Title** : Places to Be  
 **Author** : Lobelia;  
 **Fandom** : Inception  
 **Pairing** : Arthur/Eames  
 **Rating** : G. (I know! What has come over me?!)  
 **Warning** : Claustrophobia.  
 **Copyright** : I don't own nor pretend to any rights to these fictional characters, nor is any money exchanging hands.  
 **Summary** : Dreaming occurs. Arthur sweats.  
 **Words** : 600.  
 **Author's notes** : Thanks to the ever lovely LJ-users helenish and viva_gloria and the inspirational hotpicposts of cherrybina for inspiration and unbidden bunnies! This isn't even one of the unbidden bunnies, just some other random rodent that bit me before I had even got dressed this morning.  
 **Dedication!** Oh, and this one is totally for badgermonkey who has re-emerged after years of hibernation. I hold her responsible for the pre-getting-dressed and getting bit-by-bunnies situation. (Or should that be 'bit by beagles'?)  
 **Feedback?** 'tis loved!!!

 **Places to be  
by Lobelia**

Arthur was half-way across the ravine when the rope ladder unraveled from between his fingers and he landed face-down in a tiny dark room.

Eames breathed out and in next to him.

"What the..." said Arthur. He felt around with his hands but there was no trace of rope or wind or the boiling waters of the Andean waterfall that he had been traversing. Or thought he had been traversing.

"This is a very small place," said Eames.

"No kidding," said Arthur. He turned onto his back and reached up to the familiar wooden ceiling. He didn't even have to straighten his arms.

Eames rolled around next to him. "I'm not finding an exit. You don't happen to have a light on you?"

"Where the hell is the architect?"

"Architect? I don't think this has to do with any architect."

A cold half-remembered dread soaked up through Arthur's guts. "You're not saying that something happened to the fucking architect?"

"It's not as if architects don't have enemies. Is it now?"

"We're all asleep in the same room together. Why would whoever woke up the architect..."

"Or killed the architect."

"Or killed, whatever, damnit. Why wouldn't they... Why are we still here?"

Eames started to tap the walls. Arthur knew this was futile. "This is not the architect's dream," said Eames. His voice was matter-of-fact. Eerily so.

"Whose dream is it then? The mark's?"

"You tell me." Eames rolled across Arthur who was still on his back. He knocked on the wall which sounded wooden and six feet thick. Which it was.

Arthur's left leg started to shake. "It's not the mark's."

Eames' breath was right next to Arthur's ear. "It's yours, isn't it?" He thumped the planks, ran his hand along Arthur's arm, along his hand, along the floor next to Arthur's arm and hand. "It feels like yours. It's the lovely interior decoration and the panoramic view. Gives the game away."

Arthur's tongue swelled in his mouth. The nameless evil was afoot.

Eames was doing something, still heavy on top of Arthur's chest. Arthur couldn't see Eames. Arthur's eyeballs had been sucked dry of vision.

"Tell me three things," Eames said. His voice was distorted, like underwater sonic booms, like a death knell, like a toilet flushing to hell. "Three thaoongs thAAt will WAke YooooU up."

Arthur tried to make words around his tongue. "Ki," he managed.

"That's riIIIIght. KiiiIIIIck." Eames' voice filled out the space and banged off the walls. "What eLLLLse?"

"Ki... ki."

"Kiiilllling. Yes. GoooOOOOd. But what eLLLLse?"

A black hood was drawn over Arthur's face. When he breathed in, the heavy sack cloth sucked into his mouth cavity.

"That's rIIIIIght. Fear."

The nameless evil spilled out of Eames' voice and covered Arthur's face and pressed the hood into his eyeballs and into his earholes and down his throat.

He woke up.

Sweat and tears streaked down his face.

"That's some nightmare you've got going there, darling," Eames' voice said.

"What the..." Arthur blinked into sunshine.

"Let's go," said Eames. He was gathering stuff, winding up cables and clicking hinges. "Place is a blood bath."

"It's the same one," Arthur said. He stared at the ceiling, far away above his head. "I've been having it for years. I don't know how the fuck it got into the shared dream."

Eames stepped across the prone body of the architect. "It's not the same one. You just think it's the same one. You just _dream_ it's the same one."

"I'm going to kill that architect," Arthur said. He patted his pocket for a handkerchief, then wiped his face on his shirt sleeve.

"No need," Eames said. "Come on. We've got places to be."

+++  
THE END. FOR NOW.  
Posted 2 March 2011.

Also posted at http://lobelia321.livejournal.com/720149.html 


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